As contrasted with the automated making of non-filter cigarettes, filter cigarette manufacture presents a more demanding operation in its continuing requirement for supply of filter rods to the ultimate cigarette maker or assembler. Typically, the supplied rods are elongate solid cylinders of fibrous material cuttable longitudinally to form a plurality of filter plugs, each for use in the making of an individual cigarette. Whereas hand or manual feeding of rods to the maker directly at the making location has long been practiced, for example, by placing trays of rods atop a rod hopper on the maker, more recent efforts have sought to feed rods to the rod hopper in automated manner from a location remote from the maker, apparatus for use in such systems being disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,608,972 and 3,222,110 and British Pat. No. 1,070,339 and entire systems being commercially known, for example, the machinery identified as "APHIS (Automated Plug Handling Inspection System) II", produced by the Molins Machine Co., Ltd. and described in its publication for such machinery entitled "Illustrated Parts List". A modified version of this last-mentioned system is set forth in copending commonly-assigned U.S. Application Ser. No. 527,907 of applicant and others, filed on Nov. 27, 1974.
The APHIS II system and that of said copending application both incorporate at the maker location a guide for receiving rods from an air-pressurized conduit and delivering them singly to a vertical channel from which they are dispensed to rod conveyor means leading to a rod hopper.